Thomson Reuters — FileCabinet CS

FileCabinet
CS completes the circle of the Thomson Reuters CS suite of tax and accounting
applications. If your firm has one or more of the other CS applications deployed,
then FileCabinet CS should be on your short list of potential DMS solutions,
due to the integration and common user interface.

USABILITY:
The FileCabinet CS interface is designed with the client list displayed along
the left side by name or client number. The main window displays a series of
portlet windows including a task list, recent client/document activity, firm
information, product release notices and data file locations. When you select
a client, the window expands to show all of the folders, and those can be expanded
to display and open the documents or native files. The main window displays
notes organized in tabs by application on the top and a detailed event history
in the bottom. When you select a file, it is available for immediate preview
without retrieving it.

I found one of the compelling features to be the functionality for sending
a document via email, which is one of the most frequently used features of any
EDMS. You can choose to send the document with or without your internal annotations,
convert it to PDF format, password protect the document and create a compound
document, all from one simple dialogue window. The ability to pick and choose
multiple files and even select specific pages from each file to create a new
compound document is a feature your staff will definitely want to take advantage
of. When you create a file, a banner page can be created that serves as table
of contents with hyperlinks to individual documents and pages.

FILE ORGANIZATION/MANAGEMENT:
FileCabinet CS organizes files by client, fiscal year, each CS application within
the year and then by period. It will display either applications within a year,
or years within an application based on user preference. You can also create
your own folders as necessary. A nice feature is that only folders that actually
have documents or files will display, eliminating a lot of unnecessary folder
clutter. If you display a file created by a CS application, a button will display
for each page in the document to help build the compound files described earlier.

Within each client’s view, a tab for each CS application is displayed
that contains the application-specific notes, of which you have the ability
to control the formatting, including color coding, to identify attributes of
specific notes.

INTEGRATION:
If you have deployed other CS applications, this is where FileCabinet CS really
shines. The integration with all of the other CS applications such as Practice
CS, Accounting CS, UltraTax CS, Fixed Assets CS and others is embedded so that
storing and retrieving files from/to FileCabinet CS is very efficient. You’ll
recall from the introduction to this review section (www.cpata.com/go/2410)
that using the system has to be easy and intuitive for your staff or they will
not fully embrace it. FileCabinet CS has this covered quite nicely.

Additional key integrations include NetClient CS, the dynamic portal tool
that integrates with all of the CS applications. You can easily choose which
documents you want published to the portal using drag and drop. You can populate
your FileCabinet CS client list from any of the other CS applications. You can
store office application files in their native format and launch them directly
from FileCabinet CS.

FileCabinet CS also includes, at no additional charge, the ability to transmit
scanned tax source documents from FileCabinet CS to the Thomson Reuters Data
Center for OCR processing, page naming and data extraction. This data can be
reviewed and seamlessly transferred to UltraTax CS for use in preparing individual
tax returns.

RELATIVE VALUE:
The bottom line on FileCabinet CS is that if you are a “CS Shop”
then it easily earns a five star rating across the board. The value proposition
is most compelling if you use other CS applications, but it is still a robust
solution for those not using other CS products. You have the option of running
FileCabinet CS as a Virtual Office application hosted by Thomson Reuters in
their world-class data centers, which offers you an easy-to-deploy alternative
and peace of mind in regards to the security and safety of your electronic documents
and files. Pricing for FileCabinet CS is $1,500 for a renewable license.